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Randutiae, Plus a FAQ: Do you have playlists for your books?

Before I get to the FAQ, I like my friend Sam's short Tuesday post about climate change, blame, and responsibility. I also like this xkcd (though this one is still my favorite). AND I like watching those ladies luge. Have you been watching the ladies luge? The speed they achieve defies belief! And how about those snowboarders? Plus, figure skating! Tune in tonight to watch Stéphane Lambiel spin. ♥

I like this short opinion piece about gender politics and the Olympics: After Atalanta on alterations to the men's and women's luge tracks following the death of Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili. (H/t, J.)

This is a Visa commercial and it makes me cry and I'm not ashamed of that. BTW, the person at Visa who decided to hire Morgan Freeman to narrate the ads? I hope you got a raise. (Watch the Derek Redmond one, too, and click on some of the others! Love the Kerri Strug one, too.)******You post about music a lot, so I know it's important to you. Do you listen to music while you write? Do you have a playlist for Graceling or Fire that you could share with us?

When I write, I usually need silence and often wear earplugs. I hardly ever listen to music while I write, and this picture of my notebook last Friday -- when I was trying to write and listen at the same time -- should explain why. See the marks on the page that look suspiciously unlike words or cross-outs? See what happens? I am easily distracted, and music is Very Distracting. I start trying to figure out why a particular piece of music is making me feel the way it's making me feel, and suddenly I'm thinking about notes and their relation to each other instead of what I'm supposed to be doing -- writing. And one question leads to another, and before you know it, I'm boggling my brain with silly questions like, what's between a D and a D sharp? What's between an E and an F? Is there really no musical tone that fits between them, and if there is, when do we get to play them? Were scales discovered or invented? If invented, what's with all the half-steps -- why is an E sharp the same as an F -- who's idea was it to label the notes that way? Why aren't the notes arranged into a "septive," with only whole steps all the way through? Are there cultures where the music is based on septives? Would their music sound dreadful to me?

One minute, I'm trying to write a scene, and the next, I'm making a list of preposterous questions to ask my Aunt Marzipan the professional musician, so that she can save me from myself. Or else my nose is in the dictionary, and NOT because of my writing. "Tone: a musical sound of definite pitch, consisting of several relatively simple constituents called partial tones, the lowest of which is called the fundamental tone and the others harmonics or overtones." Fascinating!!! Or else, I'm checking my online library catalog and DISCOVERING THAT I CAN REQUEST MUSICAL SCORES. ZOMG. *flops* (*does not write*)

Actually, there is one piece of music I listened to a lot -- but only during breaks -- while I was writing and revising Fire. It's fiddle music, not surprisingly, and you can listen to the first 90 seconds of it at the website of Prince Edward Island fiddler Cynthia MacLeod. Scroll down to the album Crackerjack and click on Track 11, "Fingal's Cave - Cutting Ferns - Lochiel's Awa' To France - Sunday Morning Mojo - Bird's Nest." The track is a combination of those five reels, but the only one you'll hear in the clip is the first one, "Fingal's Cave." I listened to that track over and over while writing Fire; I would take a break from writing, lie on the floor, and listen to it, and it would restore me. When Fire plays the Dellian lament, I imagine it sounding like "Fingal's Cave," and when she's playing her reels with Krell, I imagine it sounding like the other four reels, which, like I said, you can't hear in this clip, but which are super-fast and super-fun.

I had no go-to music with Graceling. And I'm never actively looking for music to assist my writing. I discovered the MacLeod CD by accident after attending a ceilidh (pronounced KAY-lee) in PEI where MacLeod's performance basically stole the show; the "Fingal's Cave" track took me by surprise. I've had a similar experience recently with Bitterblue, in that I've stumbled across a piece of music that seems to connect with Bitterblue in my head for some reason. I've been listening to it obsessively -- which is why I was having a problem last Friday. It's called "Sacrifice" and is from the Buffy episode "The Gift." You can listen to it here.

Sorry I can't offer a playlist! But yours would be just as valid as mine -- make one up for yourself. My sister, secret codename: Apocalyptica the Flimflammer, tells me that the Björk song "Isobel" always makes her think of Fire... (lyrics: "in a forest pitch-dark / glowed the tiniest spark / it burst into flame / like me : like me")... and my editor says the same about Holly Cole's "The Briar and the Rose." I think it'd be fun to hear the playlist everyone else came up with!

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"If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."

-Toni Morrison

Jane, Unlimited is my fourth release, a kaleidoscopic novel about grief, adventure, storytelling, and finding yourself in a world of seemingly infinite choices. It's also about umbrellas and umbrella-making :o). It comes out on September 19, 2017. I hope to have more stuff up about it soon, including reviews and foreign release info! For now --
Jane has lived an ordinary life, raised by her aunt Magnolia—an adjunct professor and deep sea photographer. Jane counted on Magnolia to make the world feel expansive and to turn life into an adventure. But Aunt Magnolia was lost a few months ago in Antarctica on one of her expeditions. Now, with no direction, a year out of high school, and obsessed with making umbrellas that look like her own dreams (but mostly just mourning her aunt), she is easily swept away by Kiran Thrash—a glamorous, capricious acquaintan…

So, I went to a lovely performance of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake by the Russian National Ballet Theatre this weekend. (In case you don't know the story: the Evil Dude Rotbart has turned a bunch of Lovely Girls into swans. One night Prince Siegfried goes hunting with his buddies, sees the swans, falls for the Most Beautiful Swan, and professes his undying love. His promise of eternal love breaks Evil Dude Rotbart's spell and the Most Beautiful Swan and her friends are free to be girls again. But shortly thereafter in a moment of male forgetfulness Prince Siegfried swears his love to Random Girl [who, in his defense, does look an awful lot like the Most Beautiful Swan]. M.B. Swan's heart is broken and Evil Dude Rotbart's spell descends back upon her. Then the Prince realizes what he's done! He fights Evil Dude Rotbart! He wins, killing E.D. Rotbart and freeing M.B. Swan forever! They all live happily ever after!)

Last year, while searching for appropriate teapot/flower fabric for my Mad Hatter costume, I stumbled across the book fabric shown in the skirt above. That's when I realized I wanted to be a library this year... I've been planning this costume for over a year :o).
I made most of this costume myself, including the skirt, top, and hat. The "QUIET PLEASE" sign on the top is cut out of felt. I glued it on while wearing the top and looking in the mirror (bugging Kevin every three minutes to ask if any of my letters were backwards), because that was the only way to know how it would look while I was wearing it.

Same with the book spines that make up the torso. I found old, falling apart books no one wanted, removed the spines, and attached them to a bustier, with staples, thread, and fabric glue, while wearing the bustier... because the bustier was stretchy, and this was the only way to know exactly where and how things needed …

Kristin Cashore wrote the New York Times bestsellers Graceling, Fire, Bitterblue, and Jane, Unlimited. Graceling is the winner of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature and Fire is the winner of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. The books are world travelers, currently scheduled to be published in thirty-four languages.

***

"Then, at last, sitting on her stretcher-bed, she took from the very bottom of her pack an old peacock-blue scarf folded around a heavy, square book. She unwrapped it and opened it very carefully, as if guilty secrets might fall from between its pages like pressed flowers. This was Harry's secret. She was a writer."

-from The Tricksters, by Margaret Mahy

Writing is my secret. Every day I unwrap and open it as carefully as I can. Welcome to my blog about writing and life! Above you'll find quick links about me and my books, and below is more about me, ways to subscribe, and an archive of past posts. Click here to go home to my most recent posts.

Finally, a note: This blog is my only online presence. I am not on Facebook, Google+, or any other social media sites, and I use Twitter mainly as an amalgamation feed for my blog. Sorry, but I do not read @-replies on Twitter!